Friday, 11 May 2012

Minute After Midday

Tron Theatre, Glasgow4 starsThe spectre of the 1998 Omagh bombing casts a long shadow over the Irish Troubles last bloody gasp, even as it ripped a community asunder forever. The collective sense of shell-shocked grief that followed is unlikely to be captured better than in Ross Duggan’s perfectly pitched elegy told through the words of three survivors of this all too pointless atrocity.First seen on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2011, Duggan’s trio of criss-crossing monologues relate the events of what became a weekend off to remember for all the wrong reasons. First there is Lizzy, the little girl for whom a trip to the shops will never be the same again. Next comes Mari, whose husband Brian went out for a thirtieth wedding anniversary present and ended up saving Lizzy’s life at the expense of his own. Finally, there is Conor, the young lad caught up in the romance of a cause he didn’t really understand, and ended up a bomber.With actors Claire Hughes, Eimear O’Riordan and Jude Greer sitting side by side and bathed in a near holy glow against the blackness, each person’s story is told simply and without judgement in Emily Reilly and Duggan’s stark and elegant production for the 15th Oak company in association with the Gilded Balloon. As the tragedy forces the three lives together just as their words inter-connect, it’s as if they’ve come blinking into some celestial light moving slowly but surely towards reconciliation. If the healing really has begun in a still volatile Ireland, for anyone still not convinced by the waste of innocent lives, Duggan’s play should be required viewing.The Herald, May 11th 2012ends

About Me

Coffee-Table Notes is the online archive of Neil Cooper. Neil is an arts writer and critic based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Neil currently writes for The Herald, The Quietus, The List and Scottish Art News, and has written for Bella Caledonia and Product. He has contributed chapters to The Suspect Culture Book (Oberon) and to Dear Green Sounds: Glasgow's Music Through Time and Buildings (Waverley) and co-edited a special Arts and Human Rights edition of the Journal of Arts & Communities (Intellect). Neil has written for Map. Line, The Wire, Plan B, The Arts Journal, The Times, The Independent, Independent on Sunday, The Scotsman, Sunday Herald, Scotland on Sunday, Sunday Times (Scotland), Scottish Daily Mail, Edinburgh Evening News, Is This Music? and Time Out Edinburgh Guide. Neil has written essays for Suspect Culture theatre company, Alt. Gallery, Newcastle, Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, Berwick upon Tweed Film and Media Arts Festival and Ortonandon. Neil has appeared on BBC and independent radio and TV, has provided programme essays for John Good and Co, and has lectured in arts journalism at Napier University, Edinburgh.